We know one stat that has seen the recent revival of Aston Villa by Steve Bruce and that is the new Villa boss iss unbeaten since taking over. Villa were in the bottom three when they kicked off for the first time under Bruce, but now while they are still only 11th, the fact they are just four points off the play-offs means they are in striking distance of their ultimate promotion goal.
Current Form Table
15 points from a possible 21 under Bruce has done much to finally give hope to Villa supporters and the current form table based on the last six games sees Villa in fourth place. Winning their last three home games (Newsflash: Suddenly we’re good at Villa Park again!) has certainly bolstered this position.
Villa’s next six games are all crammed into the month of December, but a good showing should see them transform their position in the proper league table.
Home Comforts & Away Impression
Villa have the only unbeaten home record in the Championship, and after recent seasons of shocking record-breaking poor home form this is a VERY welcome statistic.
Still, despite the recent three home wins on a trot, the amount of home draws so far this season have taken some of the shine off the unbeaten record, with Villa only sixth in the best home record table.
While Villa are languishing in 19th spot when it comes to their away record, interestingly they are unbeaten against the top five home teams of the Championship that they have faced. Having beaten Reading (2nd) and drawn away to Brighton (1st) and Birmingham City (5th).
All these away results have happened under Bruce, which suggests the team is robust on their travels now after more than matching the best in the division.
A drastic improvement in Villa’s fortunes on their travels overall should be in the offing, as the quality of the opposition lessens.
A double December date with Leeds United perhaps providing Villa with their sternest test before the new year, although a four-point haul there would be satisfactory. The other four games in the final month of 2016 all come against teams in the bottom half of the current form table – Wigan (h), Norwich City (a), QPR (a) and Burton (h).
After a poor start to the season, there’s certainly a good chance of Villa entering 2017 already in the play-off places and looking ahead to the rest of the season full of hope.
UTV
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Can’t help but notice Huddersfield 21st in the form table. An awful lot of Villa fans wanted the inexperienced David Wagner to replace RDM based on nothing more than Huddersfield’s early season form. I’m not suggesting Wagner is suddenly a bad manager but the fact remains he was flavour of the month and nothing more. Thankfully the powers that be didn’t feel the same and went for the sensible option instead of another gamble. I wonder how many would still rather him over Bruce?
Brucie has made a huge difference. We are resilient at last and, more importantly, he has now stumbled on using Jack centrally in a 4-2-3-1 which suits our players perfectly.